Cats' Play
by Prophe-Cass
Summary: After time-traveling three years into the future, Ladybug must fight her largest foe in the shape of her partner... Three-years older. AU


Ladybug gagged, fingers digging into the hand curled around her throat, trying to force that hand to become a little looser to allow her more air.

However, the one who held her a full yard above the ground as he strangled her didn't loosen his grip, piercing blue eyes staring emotionlessly at her face.

"Cha…chat…" she tried, gazing at him with every ounce of fear she could muster, hoping he would release her after seeing how much this was hurting her. "Pl…pl…please…"

His grip, if at all possible, only tightened, not a flicker of horror at what he was doing passing across his face.

Then again, this was Chat Blanc. Cold and calloused where Noir was warm and joyful.

Ladybug wondered if this was future Chat Noir's personality, and it wasn't just akumatization that made him this wicked. After all, Chat Blanc was from three years in the future.

He looked slightly older then Chat Noir, taller and with a faint whiff of beard stubble if looked at just right. He was stripped of all his color, left whiter then a sheet save for his chilly, calculating blue eyes.

Ladybug choked once more, struggling against his grasp. Her eyes searched for Bunnix, but the heroine could not be found, having long since disappeared to leave Ladybug to fight her most fearsome foe alone.

In anger, Ladybug kicked out her leg, managing to land the blow on Blanc's chest, but it was ineffective, deflecting off him without the man flinching or swaying in the slightest, still saying nothing. He had yet to speak, expressing nothing other then an annoyed growl three minutes earlier.

Ladybug's vision became black around the edges, and her breaths became even heavier as she struggled against him. Her fingers grappled with his arm even more, no longer wanting him to simply loosen up but to release her entirely.

Her eyes began to drift shut, her brain giving up on life as it proceeded to go on lockdown.

Soon.

She'd be at peace.

_Darkness._

_Silence._

_Comfort._

_Good memories._

_Chat Noir's smile._

_Rena Rouge's excitement._

_Carapace's shy determination._

_Viperion's—_

Her breath came back suddenly, in a huge gust of air, filling her lungs, pouring into her heart, her mind, bringing life once more.

The ground met her, smashing into the bottom of her feet, white and blue concrete failing to cushion her fall.

Ladybug collapsed onto her knees, inhaling sharply again and again, raising her fingers to her throat to make sure Chat Blanc was no longer restricting her breathing.

No threat immediately presented itself, so she raised her eyes and looked about, curious as to what had stopped Blanc from finishing her off.

Bluebell eyes circled the stage that had served as the battlegrounds, searching for that familiar body of bleached white leather.

After several agonizing seconds of searching, she found it, paired with an equal shape of black leather, and she nearly choked on the air that was coming into her lungs.

Chat Noir stood before Blanc, pummeling the older feline.

Blanc fought back just as hard, teeth snapping as he tried to bite apart Noir's face, claws threatening to tear through fabric and gouge the flesh.

Noir vaulted over him, slamming his baton into Blanc's back.

Blanc retaliated, whirling around to swipe his claws into Noir's chest.

Noir flinched away, touching his ripped suit and trying to stop the trickled of blood produced from his new wound.

Blanc's claws, it appeared, could break the invincible spell woven around the heroes, cutting open their magical suits with a solid slash.

Blanc, content that his opponent was occupied, turned back to Ladybug, face remaining as blank as his namesake.

He took three steps toward her, menacingly approaching.

Ladybug, still struggling for air, stumbling back several steps on all fours, trembling.

"No!" Noir shrieked, breaking the silence of the battlefield, once again pouncing on Blanc, this time using his claws as bonus leverage against Blanc as well as his baton. "Don't touch My Lady!"

Blanc pivoted in fury that his attack had failed, his face loosing the stoic expression for the first time, a snarl bursting from his throat.

Noir's fist collided with Blanc's jaw, sending the pale feline several steps back.

Ladybug, only watching from a distance, could've sworn that the hit area had broken, twisted to one side.

Blanc grabbed his chin, however, and, in one swift move, snapped it back into its original position.

Noir rubbed his hand, an expression of awe upon his face before he attacked again, Blanc dodging to one side as he lunged forward, managing to bite Noir's ear.

Fortunately, the ear in question was only his cat ear, made of fabric and not physically bonded to his body.

As he pulled away, only fabric was left behind, right cat ear shredded to bits.

Noir seemed to bristle, turning in fury.

Blanc opened his mouth, cleaning off his teeth of fabric, pulling out a few chunks of black leather.

Chat Noir pounced at his unsuspecting victim, burying his own claws into Blanc's right arm.

Blanc growled, struggling against his fiend as he attempted to free his arm from Noir's left hand.

Ladybug found her way onto her feet, scampering over to where Blanc had angrily tossed her yo-yo some time before.

She scooped up her weapon, giving it a quick practice whirl on her right side before casting it out, wrapping Blanc up with it using practiced accuracy, missing Noir entirely as the teenager released his captive's arm.

Blanc struggled against the wire, doing his best to unite his hands to cast his White Storm, a huge blast of energy.

He did so successfully, Ladybug barely able to shout her good partner's name in fear before Bland finished charging.

Noir seemed to understand however, backflipping away from Blanc, kicking his akumatized self backward, forcing his hands into the air, releasing the blast at an angle that would explode above their heads.

Before Blanc could even try it again, Noir swung himself around Blanc, arms constricting around his neck.

Blanc's blank demeanor cracked once again into a grimace, the feline villain struggling against Chat Noir's firm grip.

"M'lady!" Noir barked, raising his head. "Lucky charm!"

"Right!" Ladybug retracted her yo-yo from Blanc, Noir still maintaining a firm, unbreakable grip around his captive.

Instead of trying to summon White Storm again, which was honestly the smart thing to do, Blanc struggled angrily against Noir, trying to pry his arms off.

Ladybug frowned, rubbing her sore neck and tossing her weapon into the air. "Lucky Charm!"

A spotted blanket toppled into her hands, the plastic-like feel reminding her of prison sheets.

Glancing around, Ladybug found nothing of purpose to her, biting her lip.

"Ideas?" Chat Noir cried as Blanc began gagging underneath his claws.

"Don't kill him!" Ladybug screeched instead of responding, staring in unmasked horror at her partner.

"Just choking him out." Chat responded evenly, no change in his expression, eerily matching that of Chat's. "Even if I did kill him, he deserved it. After all, he tried to murder you. And nobody tries to hurt you and gets away with it."

Ladybug leaned away slightly, brow furrowing in concern. She had never seen Chat - or rather, non-akumatized Chat - look so emotionless.

It was worrying.

Noir blinked twice, blank face fading into a nervous expression. His grip loosened slightly, and Blanc struggled, raising his right hand into the air.

Ladybug's gaze locked into his ring, gasping slightly. "Chat!"

Blue and green alike turned toward her, one gaze blank, the other curious.

She sighed. "Noir."

Both pairs of eyes continued staring, however Chat Noir tilted his head that he understood that she was addressing him.

"Catch!" She called, bundling it into a ball and tossing it over.

Thankfully, her partner understood.

Unfortunately, so did her…other…partner…?

While Noir lifted up his hand to catch, Blanc kicked up his leg, deflecting it and wiggling from Noir's grip.

Noir cried out in surprise, jumping for both Blanc and the blanket.

"Get the blanket!" Ladybug called, about to make a dash for them. "Use it to trap him!"

She absolutely_ hated_ having an older, evil Chat as an opponent. He could lock onto their plans, and know how to counter them.

Before she knew it, he had snapped up the blanket, holding it in front of him as he went into a battle pose.

Ladybug's chest clenched in fear, and she swung her yo-yo toward him, trying to trip him up.

However, this time, he didn't get tangled, instead jumping over it, then leaned down to clutch it and jerked it toward him.

Such an action caused Ladybug to trip forward, crashing onto the concrete.

Ladybug used one hand to push herself up a few inches, gasping to reclaim the breath she had let out in the surprise of being pulled.

"M'lady!" Chat Noir yelled, voice clipping in fear.

Ladybug raised her head to look at him, just in time to see him leap at Blanc, the white man dodging further away from Ladybug, dragging her a few more feet.

_Let go of the yo-yo, you idiot._ She told herself, letting go of the wire just as Blanc dropped it as well in favor of trapping Noir in the blanket.

Noir shouted, struggling against Blanc's grip.

Ladybug reached out, grabbing her yo-yo again and retracting it.

Shoving herself to her feet, she spun it in a circle, murder flickering into her eyes, ignoring the shrill second beep of her earrings.

Despite restraining Noir, Blanc managed to being his hands together, another White Storm powering up.

He crossed the hands, holding them up to Noir's throat, glancing at Ladybug threateningly.

His warning was clear; one misstep, and Chat Noir was a dead man. One blast, and her partner's head would be blown off.

Noir didn't even realize what was happening, struggling, blanket constricting his sight and movements.

"Noir!" Ladybug choked out, trembling.

He paused, the top of the blanket tilting slightly.

"Please. Stop struggling." She begged, shaking. "I…I can't loose you."

"What?" Noir asked, the blanket covered-form seeming to tense.

"Just don't struggle, alright?" Ladybug asked, voice trembling. "Please."

Noir growled, non-moving. "If you dare lay a finger on Ladybug, _I'll end you_." He said to Blanc, snarling low in his throat.

Blanc edged his fingers closer, close enough that Chat Noir could feel the cold energy radiating from his fingers. It must have felt similar to Cataclysm, because he completely shut down instantly besides a sharp inhale.

Ladybug reached up for her earrings, trembling. Where was Bunnix when you needed her?

Ladybug had long since realized that Bunnix had left to get Chat Noir to help her, and must have got the minutes mixed up because Chat almost arrived too late.

However; Ladybug didn't understand why Bunnix hadn't come with Chat Noir, why she hadn't returned. It simply didn't make sense.

Maybe she had some business to attend to herself.

Ladybug began to remove the backs of her earrings, inwardly apologizing to everyone she was letting down.

"M'lady…" Noir said quietly, unable to see her but understanding her intentions nonetheless. "Don't do that. I'll be fine."

Blanc's fingers crept closer, beginning to edge apart to release the energy.

"Noir…" Ladybug began, about to tell him to stop being an idiot and just be selfish for once in his life, when he continued.

"He's bluffing." Chat Noir said, not moving an inch. "Unless if he's dumb enough to have not think this through."

That got a reaction from Blanc, making him pause.

"I'm him. From the past." Chat said evenly. "If he kills me, it kill him. He wouldn't have even existed because I died before I - we, he - could become Blanc. Therefore, since he doesn't exist since I'm dead, nothing killed me, and I'm still alive. But that means Blanc is alive, and he just killed me. And, you get the drift. Reality will probably get destroyed, or, at the very least, I disappear from the face of the Earth forever; I never existed."

Blanc didn't show any signs of horror, not even blinking before his fingers neared again, this time the closeness beginning to turn the fabric pressed against Noir's flesh white, freezing it.

Then, suddenly, Blanc was on the ground, the blast firing aimlessly at the sky once again; barely missing ending the entire existence of Chat.

And there Bunnix stood, in a position indicating that she had just maced Blanc in the face with her umbrella.

She pulled the blanket off of Noir, who shied away from it, touching his icy throat as he winced.

Blanc stared stoically up at her, blue eyes uncaring, as if he had expected it.

"Kitty Noir's right." Bunnix said, smiling as she flipped the blanket over Blanc. "That's not how time travel works."

Despite his struggles, all it required was for her to plant the point of her umbrella on his chest and stepping heavily into his right hand, trapping it beneath her boot.

His fingers twitched in anger, and, though the figure twisted around, he was unable to free himself or get his hands together.

It appeared that Cataclysm was unusable with him, and he was restricted to just White Storm.

"Cataclysm!" Present-Chat, the one to still have his power, cried, leaning down and touching the akumatized ring. He slipped the brown crust off of Blanc's finger, crushing it in his fist as he growled at it.

A purple butterfly fluttered away from them, toward the sky.

Ladybug snapped her yo-yo up, tucking away the Akuma away into its purifying pocket, locking it away for two seconds before allowing it to become free and purified once more.

Chat Blanc's hand, no longer clothes in white or even black leather, was the only part of him Ladybug could actually see, and it was only skin she saw, pale beyond reckoning. Much paler then Noir's skin, that was for sure. Blanc had since stopped struggling, no longer moving, not even an inch.

Ladybug turned her back as Noir and Bunnix cautiously removed the sheet, both worried he'd begin fighting again even with the butterfly out of his system.

After a few agonizing seconds, Noir appeared beside Ladybug, wordlessly handing her the blanket.

Ladybug took it from him, tossing it into the air with a quiet "Miraculous Ladybug!"

The ladybugs washed over the city, downsizing the water levels completely and unfreezing that which was frozen, bringing the Stadium underneath their feet back to its proper color schemes. Noir's injuries and ripped ear healed, put back in its proper place.

"What happened?" Asked a voice sounding suspiciously like Chat's, but deeper.

"Tell you in a bit." Bunnix returned, appearing beside the younger generation. "Let's get you two, home, first. I think you two have spent too much time in the future." She easily informed them, opening a new portal to shoo them through.

Once both were safe on the other side, she granted them a nod. "I'll see you in the future, yeah?"

She vanished through the blue circle once more, closing the portal behind her.

The moment Ladybug and Chat Noir were alone, she crashed into him, hugging him desperately as exhaustion set in,

He hugged her back just as much, squeezing her tightly.

"That was terrifying." Ladybug mumbled into his shoulder, shaking. "Never get Akumatized, you hear that?"

"I'll do my best." Chat Noir responded, voice but a whisper. "I'd _never_ hurt you, hear me?"

_But you will._ Ladybug thought bitterly. _Otherwise, we wouldn't have just spent a lot of time fighting Akumatized-you._

"I'll _always_ be here for you." Chat Noir continued, hands gripping her back tightly. "Okay? _Always_."

_Liar. Liar. Liar._ But, she supposed, _it's good enough for now._

_I trust you._


End file.
